Nigeria on Tuesday got closer to having a law to protect female students in tertiary institutions from sexual harassment by lecturers with the passage of the Sexual Harassment Bill by the Senate.

‘A Bill for an Act to Prevent, Prohibit and Redress sexual Harassment of Students in Tertiary Educational Institutions and for Matters Concerned Therewith, 2019”, was read for the third time at Senate during plenary and subsequently passed.

The bill which was sponsored by Deputy President of the Senate, Chief Ovie Omo-Agege came at the wake of rising cases of harassment and rape of female students across the country.

The Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters by Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Opeyemi Bamidele, who presented report on the Bill explained that it was co-sponsored by 106 senators.

Bamidele said the objectives of the bill was to prohibit the offence of sexual harassment of students of tertiary institutions and criminalise the act of neglect or failure of administrative heads of tertiary educational institutions to address complaints of sexual harassment within a specified period of time.

It “Creates a strict liability offence by removing mutual consent as a defense in the prosecution of sexual harassment cases in tertiary educational institutions”, he noted.

He said that the committee members with stakeholders at the public hearing supported the passage of the bill except the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

“We observed that sexual harassment in our tertiary institutions is one of the major factors responsible for the decline in academic excellence in the country today, as hard work, merits and transparency have been compromised by this ugly trend.

“This has provided a hostile learning environment for students, thereby creating an enabling atmosphere for mediocrity, indiscipline and inefficiency in our tertiary institutions.

“That the absence of a legislation to particularly mitigate the menace of sexual harassment in our tertiary institutions is the reason for the overwhelming rise in cases of sexual harassment as have been reported in recent times.

“That the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is of the view that the Bill is ad hominem because it targets a particular community, which in this case, are the educators in the tertiary institutions, whereas sexual harassment is a general societal problem that is not peculiar to tertiary institutions alone.”

In his contribution, Sen. Omo-Agege said the Senate was seeking to elevate students in tertiary institutions who were otherwise adults, who ordinarily ought to be covered by extant laws dealing with rape.

“If this crime were committed against a minor, that is those under 18 years, under the extant laws, it is a strict liability offence.”

Leading his voice, Senate President Ahmad Lawan said that this was one very important and landmark legislation that the ninth Senate had passed.

“We have to protect our daughters, sisters and mothers from predators.

“We pray that those educators don’t have to be taken before the courts of law for any offence.

“We want our tertiary institutions to be very important, very safe and peaceful learning environment for everyone and this is a legislation that will ensure that”.